Total Pageviews

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Utah Olympic Park

Here I've let August slip away from me before I blogged about the fabulous day Camille, Savannah Powell, and I had in Park City at Utah's Olympic Park on August 16, 2011.

It was our last (okay my only) fling of the summer. Camille has been loads of fun places and done lots of fun things with the Powell family this summer, but I was in school, working at Mimi's house and having a wedding so that pretty much shot my summer full of holes.

This one day had to encapsulate all the fun of summer for me. It turned out to be a great way to wish the weeks of summer farewell. The drive to Park City was spectacular; the day was perfect and we told stories and giggled (the way only 17-year old-girls can) all the way up the canyon.

We bought unlimited ride passes for the Ultimate Zip Line and the Quicksilver Alpine Slide, but after riding both of those several times, the girls decided they needed a little more excitement so we upgraded their passes to include an Extreme Zip Line and a Bobsled ride so they had some thrilling and exhilarating minutes of zipping and sledding down mountainsides at 70 mph.

In front of the ski jump practice pool at Utah Olympic Park

Finding helmets for the Bobsled Run

Getting last minute instructions for the 70 mph -
40 story drop ride down the Bobsled Run

Running Starting down the Bobsled Track

Riding back to the top with the sled,
Camille and Savannah look just a little shaken

Sav and Cam ready for another fun ride down the side of the mountain
on Quicksilver, the Alpine Slide.

This video clip doesn't really do justice to how fast the girls were zipping and just how incredibly far down the mountain the line goes. The cement area with the flagpoles at the bottom is where the huge stands holding 50,000 Olympic spectators sat for the Ski Jump in the 2002 Winter Olympics. It was such a fun day. We are looking forward to returning in the winter of 2012 to celebrate 10 years since those memorable games and to do the Bobsled on real ICE when you go over 80 mph. Camille and Savannah can hardly wait!

I think that is the best post I've seen that shows what the park is like. Now I think I want to go there!

We were kinda bummed that we missed the whole "olympic" thing. We moved from Utah in 1999 and have only been back for visits. Every night that I'd watch the olympics in Utah, I'd be surprised when the DC newscasters came on the news, I was expecting Utah ones. TV viewing was probably better than the real thing, I kept telling myself!

Being here in Utah for the Olympics was pretty amazing. We went to Salt Lake twice during the two weeks. It was incredible walking down the streets surrounded by athletes speaking foreign languages. SLC did a fabulous job of hosting the games and I think every Utahan was proud to feel apart of it. But you are probably right, Tina, watching TV would have given you a better view of what was actually occurring in the sports.